Boy Who Killed His Father Says He Was Inspired by CBS Procedural

A boy who shot and killed his neo-Nazi father told police he was inspired by an episode of the CBS police procedural "Criminal Minds,” reports the Press-Enterprise in Riverside, Calif.

"A bad father did something to his kids and the kid did the exact same thing I did — he shot him,” said the boy, who is now 12 but was 10 at the time of the shooting. "He told the truth and wasn’t arrested and the cops believed him. He wasn’t in trouble or anything. I thought maybe the exact same thing would happen to me.”

The Riverside County, Calif., boy is not being identified by name by the publication, but his father, Jeff Hall, was shot in the head and killed on May 1, 2011. The boy is on trial for murder, and his interview with authorities in the aftermath of the shooting was played as evidence in the trial.

“The boy described how he woke up before 4 a.m. and lay in bed plotting to shoot his father,” the piece reports. “He said he wanted to end his father’s abuse. He also worried that his parents were going to get a divorce, and he wanted to end up with his stepmother, Krista McCary, not his father.”

The report comes after Mandy Patinkin told New York magazine that starring in “Criminal Minds” was "the biggest public mistake" he had made. As previously reported, Patinkin described the show as "very destructive to my soul and personality." The actor cited the series’ violent storylines as being troublesome for him, and referred to the possible negative effect of the show on audiences.

“I’m not making a judgment on the taste [of people who watch crime procedurals],” Patinkin said in an interview with New York Magazine. “But I’m concerned about the effect it has. Audiences all over the world use this programming as their bedtime story. This isn’t what you need to be dreaming about.”